


the reckless, the wild

by iphigenias



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Coming Out, EWE, F/F, Misgendering, Post-War, Trans Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 20:44:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6674878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iphigenias/pseuds/iphigenias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It hurts to bleed. Ginny knows this better than most.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the reckless, the wild

**Author's Note:**

> this was written in half an hour on my phone because i just couldn't get the idea out of my head. ginny weasley is a beautiful bisexual and the best girlfriend ever okay? title is from "youth" by daughter
> 
> disclaimer: i am not transgender, which is why this was written from ginny's perspective. if i have misrepresented anything, please let me know. i tagged for misgendering because ginny refers to harry using male pronouns before she comes out.

Ginny stays away from Harry for the first few days, after. She's not sure whether it's to let him heal or let herself heal or maybe both or maybe neither. There's something restless in her bones and it has everything to do with the missing space between Percy and George, the scars carved deep in her best friend's arms, the hollowness that seems scooped out of her chest like some macabre intestinal Jack-O-Lantern. She spends the days cleaning up the Quidditch pitch and watching the stars bloom overhead like so many overripe stone fruits, skimming the burned grass on her old Cleansweep and dreaming of the time before. Of something different. Different to this emptiness, this wakefulness that slakes her skin, this feeling of being present and apart all at once like a bow string pulled taut enough to snap.

It's Harry who comes to her, in the end. His hands are in his pockets and his hair is longer than she's ever seen it, scooped back into a ponytail at the base of his neck and it makes the skin around his cheekbones stretch tight in a way that hurts something deep in her stomach.

The first thing he says to her is, "I think I might be a girl." Ginny doesn't say anything, just waits for Harry to continue. She knows what it's like, telling the truth. The feeling of strips of skin being peeled off, almost flayed, the pain of the admission made all the worse by the cold whip of the wind against the red and raw membrane beneath. It hurts to bleed. Ginny knows this better than most. She waits.

Harry says, "I think I'd like it if you called me a girl. It's what I am. I just didn't know it before." She looks so lost and forlorn, like the white sails Theseus forgot to fly before it was too late. Ginny reaches out, takes Harry's hand in her own. The fingertips are raw and calloused, nails bitten down to the quick. She squeezes and feels the breath leave Harry's lungs.

"Okay," Ginny says, and smiles, and it isn't the lightning bolt scar or the irises green like meadowsweet leaves that catch her eye now. It's the look of wonder, of disbelief and joy, of the final realisation of being okay on Harry's face; it's a look Ginny has never seen before, that maybe no-one has seen before save the people too beyond her reach to ask, and the thought makes her sad.

"I'm going to kiss you now," she informs Harry, who just nods, and then the space between them vanishes like the collapse of a dwarf star, and in the buttery afternoon light Harry's skin is painted gold coffee and Ginny can feel her smile through the kiss, thin and stretched and unsure, but real, but real.


End file.
